


Holding Your Head High (Above Water)

by Kaoupa



Category: Pokemon Fan Games, Pokemon Reborn
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26489434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaoupa/pseuds/Kaoupa
Summary: Amaria Fiore doesn't have an easy life - no matter how ideal it seems, chronic depression and being rejected by the person you fall in love with are never easy.But she has a life that she can live with despite herself.
Relationships: Amaria Fiore & Victoria Marlow
Kudos: 5





	Holding Your Head High (Above Water)

**Author's Note:**

> I had a full-blown story planned for this AU (Amaria goes to Apophyll Academy) for years, but it just wasn't getting done for the longest time.
> 
> And I somehow wrote this whole thing today, within a few hours, not quite nonstop but pretty close.
> 
> It wasn't everything I wanted to do (I really wanted to get into Amaria slowly healing with Kiki and Victoria, and falling in love with Victoria), but it's what we get. Maybe I will go to that later (but then again, I am not sure how to write romance - and honestly, I think getting into depression as a topic in a story might bring up some issues I have with it myself).
> 
> I don't own Pokemon, or Reborn.
> 
> But I am satisfied with it, especially considering that I have had a minor "annoying-level" headache for a few hours and I haven't seen the sun in days thanks to the wildfires in the Pacific Northwest...

“Amy!”

Amaria had initially been planning to spend an hour or two meditating over the dock added to the lake. (She had taken her medication beforehand, so she wouldn’t have anything to distract her).

At least, that had been the idea.

Her best friend returning to her shot it down, and Amaria Fiore’s eyes shot open.

Seeing Victoria - her crush, who had stayed her friend despite her failed confession - who was helping her heal alongside their sensei - running down the dock put a smile on her face. “Victoria!” She almost didn’t get up in time for Victoria to hug her. “Why are you here? I thought you were going to be traveling!”

Seeing her best friend leave had hurt a lot, she wouldn’t lie - but they called each other every day.

Victoria looked resolute as she spoke. “I had to come back! I made some new friends, and we’ve got problems with Team Meteor. We need Strength, and for that we need Sensei’s badge.” She smiled. “And I had to see you, too.”

Amaria couldn’t ignore the pang in her heart, the pang that came from her love for her friend. Love that wasn’t platonic.

She didn’t ignore it. But she knew that Victoria didn’t - and never would - see her that way. It hurt.

Not as much as it used to, though.

  
  
  


“Greetings, Sensei!” Victoria bowed politely, as she saw Kiki. Amaria followed her friend’s lead, bowing to the woman who had - in more than one way and at more than one time - saved her.

Kiki smiled gently. “It is good to see you again, Victoria. I see you interrupted Amaria’s meditation time.”

“Well, I can go back out there the next time I have a gym battle and stay after it’s over.” Amaria shrugged. 

“Unless they challenge you on the beach.” Victoria replied.

“...Well, then I can just meditate at the school after that. Win-win!” Amaria forced a grin onto her face.

It wasn’t nearly as hard to do that as it had been before coming here.

  
  
  


“Wait!”

The person who was going to challenge her sensei - who might expose Kiki’s weakness to everyone, even if it wasn’t their intention - paused, looking up.

As soon as they made eye contact with her, Amaria spoke.

“Fight me instead.” 

“Amy?” Victoria - who had just lost to them - looked shocked as she spoke.

“It’s… Sensei can’t take challenges right now. You know how badly she’s doing.” Amaria felt her heart break a little at those words.

Knowing that the woman who had helped her so much, helped her start the process of saving herself, would soon be beyond any help that she might be able to give her.

“But I’m okay. I’m healthy.”

She wasn’t exactly healthy _mentally_ , but she could get through a gym battle without collapsing.

“- and I’m a leader too.”

Victoria, who had been quiet before this, finally spoke up. “Amy… are you sure this is a good idea?”

Amaria nodded. “I’ll bring in a fighting team instead of my water team… and if you beat me, we’ll give you sensei's badge instead of mine.”

“...You didn’t ask sensei about this, did you?” What seemed like a question from Victoria was more a statement.

Amaria decidedly did _not_ answer the question.

“It’s better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission, right?”

  
  
  


Sensei was dead.

Kiki was dead.

She was dead, she was dead, she wasn’t _ever going to see her_ mother _again_ -

“A-Amaria?”

Through tear-streaked eyes, Amaria Fiore forced herself to look up, to see the young woman she loved stumble into the room, the heartbreak on her expression mirroring Amaria’s own.

Whether Victoria was more heartbroken by Kiki’s death or Cal’s betrayal ( _good riddance, he stole her from you,_ a small and illogical part of her mind insisted despite her attempts to tell it to shut up, that Victoria _just didn’t like girls_ ), she didn’t know.

But as the two of them fell together, sobbing as one, crushing each other in an embrace that only best friends who would trust the other with everything could give each other, their mirrored heartbreak, seeing that they would have someone was still there for them, who they hoped would always be there for them, started to heal a little.

  
  
  


“So… how did it go?”

Hearing Victoria’s inquiry as she returned to the Grand Hall from yet another date, Amaria shook her head sadly. “You really set my standards too high.”

Sighing as she looked at her co-instructor for Apophyll Academy, Victoria gestured to the pile of paperwork that had been assigned to her by Adrienn. “You want to help? Adrienn says we can get the new homeless shelter started within a few weeks after we finish all of this.”

Eyes brightening a little at the idea of helping so many people (and diverting her attention from the failed date with yet another woman who had agreed to go out with “the Water gym leader” and fallen off at the idea of dating the heavily-depressed wreck behind that persona), Amaria walked over to the paperwork her best friend was also working on.

Adrienn was really too nice for xyr own good.

(The only reason Amaria hadn’t given dating xem a shot was because xe was far too busy… and honestly, she wasn’t sure if xe liked men, women, both, only other “xes”, or none…)

  
  
  


“So… for real this time, huh?”

Looking across the now-clean water at her challenger - the trainer who, all those months ago, had helped her fight Solaris, Taka, the PULSE Camerupt, and Cal at the top of Pyrous Mountain, Amaria smiled a little.

It wasn’t faked.

“I suppose… I owe you a thanks, for the help clearing all of this up. I still can’t believe we didn’t look at the water treatment center for such a long time. To think there was something down in there, corrupting the lake and the water…”

She paused. 

“Well, I guess that’s not it. We - no. Team Meteor did most of it, we just helped a little bit.”

Amaria smiled again. It was still small, but it was mostly genuine.

It was an improvement.

“I guess… things fell apart for a while there, huh? For the lake, for the water… everything, really. But look at things now…” 

She took a look back at the now-shining city across the lake.

It was cleaner. Whiter. Less depressed and broken.

And whether it was the sun, the medicines, how she’d had so much success making new friends with Adrienn and the other Gym Leaders (thanks to all the forced League bonding because of all the incidents with Team Meteor), she was feeling more that way herself.

She wasn’t “good” yet. She honestly wasn’t sure she would ever be good.

But she had fallen apart twice already. When Victoria said no, and when her savior - her sensei - had died.

She wasn’t out of the water. But she wasn’t drowning.

And she had her arms around her pokemon.

Around her floating partners.

And she could only hope that one day, she wouldn’t have to be worried about drowning.

“Well, you’re not here to listen to me comparing myself to the city.” She nodded. “You’re here for my badge. And since you’re here instead of on the beach… I’m assuming you want to face my lake team.”

A nod later, Amaria was reaching into her backpack, and pulling out six of her eleven pokeballs.

(Being a leader who used multiple teams got you places normal people couldn’t).

“All right. You and your team should be careful of the water - it might pull you under if you aren’t careful.” 

She smiled.

“But don’t worry! We’ll get you out if it does.”

And with that lighter note, she sent out Current and Okhtosk, to the first gym fight she’d had in months.

And she would learn later that it was the first fight in all that time - one that wasn’t against terrorists, paperwork, or against herself, her love, or her own depression and fears - that she didn’t mind losing.

**Author's Note:**

> Amaria has two teams: One for the Ashen Beach and one for the Water Surface/Murkwater Field. Deliverance, her Lapras, is part of both of them.
> 
> Ashen Beach: Lapras, Poliwrath, Quagsire, Pelipper, Mega Swampert, and Ludicolo.
> 
> Water Surface/Murkwater: Lapras, Tentacruel, Empoleon, Mega Sharpedo, Wash Rotom, Seismitoad.


End file.
